By Deaglan Howlett | Posted Tuesday, May 18, 2021
Latewaves are a rock and roll band from Asbury Park, combining sweet melodies reminiscent of 90’s favorites with thoughtful lyrics and a heavy rhythm section. Their latest singles have been accompanied by fantastic music videos to promote their full length release out on Know Hope Records June 4th, 2021. Latewaves have been hard at work this past year, despite the obstacles bands were confronted with due to the pandemic. They will also be one of the first bands to break in the new Basie Plaza venue in Red Bank, NJ on 6/26 (Sold ! Out !). I reached out to the group to see how the last year has treated them and to reminisce on tour stories. Thanks again, Howie! Long live Latewaves!
When was your last show before the lockdown/switch to the year of the livestream? Did you anticipate a year off?
I think it was in February at the Wonder Bar. Well you were there, haha. That was a cool split 7” release show and we raised money for Wag On Inn Rescue. I had actually just adopted a dog from them just a few weeks prior, so that’s definitely a cool memory pre-COVID/year of the livestream. We had a week-long tour booked for the end of last March. The “postponements'' started rolling in the first week of March. We totally understood why, wanted to play things safe, but didn’t think too much of it. Figured we’d be playing those dates just a few months later once everything got better. Obviously, like everyone else, we had no idea how long this would last.
How has the pandemic affected your songwriting and overall process as a band?
I wouldn't say too much has changed. We all live within walking distance of each other. Our practice space is a few miles away. We write at home alone, we write together in the space. We did spend a few months not playing together or really seeing much of each other at all, to stay safe. Once we started to practice and write again (with precautions) it just felt the same. Definitely made writing new things even more exciting after not getting to play together for so long.
Your new video for "Enough is Enough" is great. Who did you work with? How did you all come up with the concept?
Hey, thanks! That video was our first experience working with our now amazing friend Kris Khunachak. I think we might have caught wind of him from the AP2 crew. A total cold-call-fingers-crossed-hoping for the best situation reaching out to him to get this video done. We gave him the song, and then a couple weeks later met up to hash out a concept. Kris had the “cable” idea (watch the video to find out what the hell that means) and we just kept rolling with it. It was a super fun video to make, and we’ve got a couple more things that Kris filmed and directed coming out soon! He’s so damn talented and we would not be in the position we are now without his help. It’s crazy to think we actually filmed that back in January of 2020, thinking our record would be out later that summer.
Your new album Hell to Pay comes out June 4th. Who did you record this record with? How did it affect your writing process, if at all?
We recorded Hell to Pay at The Barber Shop Studios in Lake Hopatcong, NJ. Brett Romnes engineered/mixed/produced and Vinnie Caruana was also a producer (both members of I Am The Avalanche, The Movielife). We went in there with a hell of a lot of songs. While we thought all of them were pretty much ready to go, they certainly helped us do a lot of re-working, trimmed some fat, and it really improved us as both writers and players. They are both masters of their craft and writing with them came so naturally. I’d like to think that you can hear that in the record. There’s some songs that we didn’t think would even make the cut that are now probably our favorites to play. I guess that’s a common thing band people say, but it’s the truth.
Do you have a favorite tour moment now that shows are coming back?
Wow, just reading “shows are coming back” gives ya chills nowadays. Personally, something I will never forget is the first night of our first tour. We were playing “The Shed” in Alabama. It was… a shed. We rolled up after driving straight from Jersey to said shed. A girl popped out of the house next door and said “You in latewaves? She’s closed. You’re playing in the kitchen. Come help me move the table.” So, yeah. We moved that table, and then played probably the best and most welcoming house show any of us have experienced. Shawna and I proceeded to get too drunk to blow up the air mattress so we slept in the van. We just never plugged the air mattress in. Mike woke up comfortably sleeping on a couch next to an open window. Then a bird landed on his chest and was just chillin’ inside. Perfect first night and first morning for our first tour.
Did you ever anticipate such a long break from shows? Have there been any positives with the time off?
I guess I kinda said it before, but no we never thought that it would go this long. I don’t think anybody did. Unless you’re literally an expert in pandemics (we are not). It definitely hit us hard, but we know we are very lucky. We’re coming out of this on the other side with our health and a record to put out. Just knowing the amount of friends and people overall in the music industry alone that don’t or won’t have work to go back to breaks our hearts. We’re in a good spot, and we hope that shows (safely) return and we can get the live music machine running again.
It’s hard to find the positives in all this time off, but we know that they are there. It gave us a chance to really put all of our efforts into making sure this record comes out in the way we intended. That’s tough to do from the road when you don’t have major label budgets and people. I mean, it took us a couple years just to make the record. It wasn’t because we wanted to stop and go home after a week. We had tours to go on, jobs to show up to in order to pay rent/go on tour, that whole thing. And we didn’t have to sleep on any strangers' beer soaked floors. But, I do miss that, too. Hopefully one day again soon!
